Seems like I'm late to the party, but I feel the idea of willpower is really underrated and misunderstood and I see it all over this thread.
First, willpower is absolutely a trainable skill. In the late 90s there was scientific support for the idea that willpower was a limited resource. The let people choose weather they wanted to eat a healthy snack (radish or cucumber, I think) or a cookie, then after that had them solve an impossible puzzle. People who ate the cookie kept trying almost twice as long as the healthy-snack group. They took it to mean that willpower was limited and the healthy-snack group had used it up in resisting the cookie. More recently this was disproved and an even stronger conclusion was reached - The reason why the stop exerting willpower is that they _believe_ it is a limited resource. People who don't have that idea, tend to stay in it longe.
Second, it's not exclusively willpower that keeps people healthy - things CAN get easier or harder. People who are already obese, for instance, will have a hard time loosing weight and an even harder time staying lean - because the body is indeed pushing towards that same body-fat content.
It gets easier when you avoid a situation where you need to exert the willpower in the first place. I recall a study where they seated kids in a room with a marshmallow and if they didn't eat it for X minutes, they'd get another one and then they could eat two - The kids who were allowed to leave the room for the X minutes (and did leave) had much higher success rates than the ones who chose (or were forced) to stay in the room.
I also recall some neurochemistry that makes it easier to do hard things (like working out) in the morning that later in the day.
People also tend to operate in absolutes - stay on a strict regiment of calorie counting until that one weak moment when they have a cookie. And now they're completely off because, well, they're streak was broken or because they tell themselves "I failed so I can't do it."
None of that should discount the effects of willpower. But the degree to which people need to apply it varies a lot. Just like it's easier for a non-smoker to not pick a cigarette than it is for a chain-smoker going a-pack-a-day. If someone is in the hard-to-lose weight category, I empathise - you have your work cutout for you. But training your willpower is the only long-term sustainable way to do it.
Thank you. If I could go back and time and steal this comment's content and post it instead of what I did, I would. This is what I was trying to say but I lack the knowledge and writing skills to do so, apparently!
First, willpower is absolutely a trainable skill. In the late 90s there was scientific support for the idea that willpower was a limited resource. The let people choose weather they wanted to eat a healthy snack (radish or cucumber, I think) or a cookie, then after that had them solve an impossible puzzle. People who ate the cookie kept trying almost twice as long as the healthy-snack group. They took it to mean that willpower was limited and the healthy-snack group had used it up in resisting the cookie. More recently this was disproved and an even stronger conclusion was reached - The reason why the stop exerting willpower is that they _believe_ it is a limited resource. People who don't have that idea, tend to stay in it longe.
Second, it's not exclusively willpower that keeps people healthy - things CAN get easier or harder. People who are already obese, for instance, will have a hard time loosing weight and an even harder time staying lean - because the body is indeed pushing towards that same body-fat content.
It gets easier when you avoid a situation where you need to exert the willpower in the first place. I recall a study where they seated kids in a room with a marshmallow and if they didn't eat it for X minutes, they'd get another one and then they could eat two - The kids who were allowed to leave the room for the X minutes (and did leave) had much higher success rates than the ones who chose (or were forced) to stay in the room.
I also recall some neurochemistry that makes it easier to do hard things (like working out) in the morning that later in the day.
People also tend to operate in absolutes - stay on a strict regiment of calorie counting until that one weak moment when they have a cookie. And now they're completely off because, well, they're streak was broken or because they tell themselves "I failed so I can't do it."
None of that should discount the effects of willpower. But the degree to which people need to apply it varies a lot. Just like it's easier for a non-smoker to not pick a cigarette than it is for a chain-smoker going a-pack-a-day. If someone is in the hard-to-lose weight category, I empathise - you have your work cutout for you. But training your willpower is the only long-term sustainable way to do it.